


Every Step to the Daylight

by suchA_Consequentialist



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: Gen, Guns, Minor Character Death, One-Sided Relationship, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:18:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchA_Consequentialist/pseuds/suchA_Consequentialist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have been in the same town too long. But Ben never listens to Charlie Prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Step to the Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and shared at Livejournal 2 years ago for those keeping score at home. This was beta'd by the lovely [frankenshane](http://frankenshane.livejournal.com/) (on Livejournal). 
> 
> I gladly welcome your comments, but request honesty.

They have been in this town long enough for Charlie Prince to hate it. That is saying something after the last town, where he shot three strangers on one of his better days. 

This town though—it’s different. Ben has been enjoying himself here. Here, all he has to do is sit at the old bar, wink at the woman behind and his glass never runs empty. It’s a sickening display Charlie has seen a dozen times. Like Ben’s hat it’s familiar. Unlike Ben’s hat, Charlie wants to watch it burn. 

“Boss,” He begins after a moment, slouched beside Ben at the counter, in plain view of Ben’s latest…companion.

“Mm-hmm?” Ben doesn’t use his words, which means that he’s a little drunk. The woman behind the bar will help him upstairs later.

“I’ve noticed,” setting down his drink, Charlie smacks his lips and checks around them, “the boys are getting a little—fidgety.” He puts too much emphasis on the F in ‘fidgety.’ They’re supposed to be talking about the gang of men who contentedly lounge over the piano to their left and gamble with worn cards at numerous tables to their right. Ben has to know it’s a lie already—probably hears it in Charlie’s voice if he can’t see it all around him.

In any case, he raises the next shot glass from beside its three empty companions, asking “Really now? Well that’s a mite bit sad, Charlie. I was inclined to stay a few extra days.”

It’s cruel the way he tilts that drink back, slamming it down. Each collision of glass and wood brings him a minute closer to the stairs, the bed, the sex and lonely night Charlie will have to waste as he sits down here in the saloon and worries. 

He can’t quite admit that his guns could use another good cleaning.

“We haven’t gone on a job in a few days, boss,” Charlie’s fingers twitch at the pistols in his belt, “That kind of withdrawal,” half laughing, he looks around and then focuses on Ben’s narrow blue eyes, “makes a man—nervous.”

Ben smiles and cocks his head enough to meet Charlie’s gaze, “Is that so, Charlie?”

“Yes sir.” Charlie feels unsure, unhinged. It makes him want to do God-awful stupid things. 

The opportunity presents itself when a tall redhead stumbles through the swinging hotel doors, head held high—though not as high as the six-shooter in her trembling hand.

She’s panting, chest rising beneath a gorgeous, high necked dress that reminds Charlie of Christmases back home. Not entirely pleasant, the flashbacks send a shiver up his spine. To his left, Ben spares him a glance before turning back to his shots. Three left.

“Ben Wade!” A hysterical sound, the woman’s voice is detached from her otherwise calm demeanor.

The tremble in her trigger finger means nothing. It could be effort from holding the damn gun up too long. Charlie can see as well as any one of their men that she knows how to hold it. They play cards and pay her no mind. They assume (as most men do) that shooting bottles with your husband before he heads off to work miles away does not prepare you kill a man. 

Charlie himself would not stare at her half as long if she would only take her eyes off his boss’s back. But she stares, and the shiny barrel twitches only centimeters right or left; not far enough either way to miss. 

“Ben Wade you rat bastard. You turn around and face me!” Her green eyes flash for a moment, and her hand moves haltingly to touch her stomach. 

The tell is clear to those who know what to look for. Turning fully around to face her, Charlie sees, and disappointment drags a sigh out of him.

They’ve been in this town at least a month. That means at least four weeks since the first woman Ben could find with green eyes. That’s long enough for one of Ben’s pretty girls to realize that her husband has been gone too long for her to miss certain days in her womanly routine. 

Ben Wade never did care too much for babies.

His eyes are trained on the frightened woman behind the bar, the one who’s been smiling at him all night, winking her hazel eyes without discrepancy. 

“Is there a problem?” Ben asks her after a few moments. His voice is smooth and unworried, like a snake charmer making a few dollars at the fair. Charlie can’t remember the last time he’d been to a fair. He can’t remember the last time he laughed at something without blood.

His eye trained on the woman at the door, Charlie leans back into the counter and waits.

She remains still, her hips swaying a bit as she keeps her knees from locking. Between her and their place at the bar, there are at least six tables filled with men. Between her bullet and Ben Wade there is only Charlie. The room is shallow. There isn’t much but the long bar and its flanking spaces for gambling tables.

All Ben has to do is say the word. Her gun barrel won’t tremble again.

“Ben? You hear me?” This lady doesn’t want to go to jail, but she must realize that any sheriff who finds Ben Wade dead would probably give her a medal and a couple dollars to replace her wasted bullets.

She doesn’t realize that it’s not the authorities she should worry about. She doesn’t realize that the man to Ben’s right has done things she should fear, or that the men in this tavern are keeping one eye on their games and another on her trigger-finger.

If someone were to explain that, she might leave. She might forget retribution, and focus on preservation.

But Ben Wade doesn’t like to see his men wasting their time when a problem has an easy solution – a fast solution. This woman’s blood won’t be their mess to clean up. It will be left for the goddamn bar maid to mop at – in the morning, after Ben has left an entirely different kind of mess on her sheets.

Ben Wade never worries about the things he leaves behind. He never thinks twice about the things left in his women, or the bullets he has Charlie sometimes put there. If a son finds him in the distant future, Charlie imagines he will hand the boy a gun and wait to see what use this new heir is. Nothing too Biblical about that. Nothing in the Bible about dragging children on bank raids either though.

“Take care of that for me, will you Charlie?” Ben asks, impatient with his female friend’s fear. As he moves to get up, finally, so does the woman at the door. 

Taking a step forward she jolts suddenly, hit with two bullets from Charlie’s drawn pistol. 

She begins bleeding very slowly from her forehead before she collapses. 

Behind the bar the other woman has stopped screaming long enough for Ben to whisper endearments in her ear. 

They head upstairs, his brawny arm wrapped around her trembling form. 

Charlie glances at the five empty shots on the oak bar and the sixth slides down his throat like an old friend. 

As he trudges toward the door, one of the men looks up from his game long enough to give Charlie a nod. It is one of a hundred Charlie has received in his time with the boss.

Charlie supposes - arranging the body carefully so that he can carry her through the doors - he should be grateful that for at least part of the night he will now be occupied. It is a few hours he won’t be sitting under the burning kerosene lamps, waiting for a man who won’t need him till morning.


End file.
